TWO ALLEGED ‘GIORGIONES’
THE Leuchtenberg Gallery at St. Petersburg has lately yielded up some of those treasures which it has long and jealously guarded. In 1852 Passavant published a catalogue raisonné of the pictures, with illustrations in outline, and to many this large volume has been the sole medium of introduction to the collection. Several of the originals have now found their way to London, among them two which bear the great name of Giorgione—an Adoration of the Shepherds, and a Madonna and Child. Both appear in outline in Passavant’s book, under the name of Barbarelli, the supposed cognomen of Giorgione, to which, however, as modern research has shown, he is not entitled.[43] ¶ The Madonna and Child picture has now passed into the rich collection of Mr. George Salting, of which assuredly it will not be one of the least ornaments; here moreover it will hang in company with another picture from the same hand, each admirably illustrating two different phases of Cariani’s art. For to Cariani, the Bergamesque painter, must be ascribed the authorship of this Madonna and Child, which reveals him in a mood no less characteristic than does the fine Portrait of one of the Albani Family, which Mr. Salting has generously placed on loan at the National Gallery. It would be a fitting complement to see the new Cariani hung near the other, if only to prove how charming an artist he can be at times, and how far superior these examples are to the two which the nation actually possesses at Trafalgar Square. ¶ Like all artists not absolutely in the first rank, Cariani varies considerably in quality of workmanship; indeed, owing to the peculiar local characteristics of Bergamesque art Cariani is exceptionally protean in form, appearing now in Venetian guise, now in Brescian, now in his own native awkwardness. For by nature he was not gifted with great refinement, or with a strong individuality, and when the temporary influence of Lotto, or of Palma Vecchio, or even of Previtali, was withdrawn, he easily lapsed into a slovenliness which repels, or into a tastelessness which betrays his provincial origin. Fortunately this is not the mood we feel in Mr. Salting’s Madonna. There is a homely strain indeed, which makes the subject simply Mother and Child; a conception which we find exactly paralleled in another charming work of his known as La Vergine Cucitrice, or The Sempstress Madonna, in the Corsini Gallery in Rome (see [illustration]). But the homeliness of conception is in each case relieved by the exquisite setting; the landscape background and especially the decorative foliage being treated with a rare feeling for beautiful effects. Girolamo dai Libri’s lemon trees and the leafy arbours of Lotto and Previtali do not make more charming bowers than do Cariani’s rose hedge and his hanging limes. Add, moreover, a certain fullness of form, a softness of expression, and a harmony of colour, which can be traced to the direct influence of Palma Vecchio in Venice, and you have in Mr. Salting’s picture probably the most attractive Madonna and Child which Cariani ever painted. Can there be better evidence of appreciation on the part of some bygone owner than that he considered it worthy of the great Giorgione himself, and that up to now it has borne this courtesy title?
Walker & Cockerell, Ph.Sc.
Madonna and Child by Giovanni Busi (Cariani) in the collection of Mr. George Salting.
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LARGER IMAGE
Photography by Anderson
THE SEMPSTRESS MADONNA (LA VERGINE CUCITRICE) BY CARIANI; IN THE CORSINI GALLERY, ROME